Chapter Seven

Gen rushed into the hotel room where the bridesmaids were busy getting ready. With her dress tucked over her arm and her heels in her free hand, she headed over to her sister. Gen beamed at Jada whose dream fairytale princess dress looked just as she’d always described it. Catching her reflection in the mirror, Jada spun around.

“Genevieve! Oh my God!” Jada screamed. She hoisted her huge skirt up and ran as best she could to her sister.

Jada grasped Gen in a tight hug. “You look beautiful,” Gen said with a teary face.

“Me? Who gives a flying rip about me? What happened last night?” Jada asked in a rush while her hands flew over Gen’s body for any sign of injury.

Gen laughed. “What are you talking about? Who cares! You’re getting married!”

“Yeah, who cares, we all know she just made him leave with her. He probably just took her back to the hotel and dropped her off,” Mallory hissed from the couch where she was holding an entire bottle of champagne.

“Well why don’t you prove it?” Gen challenged Mallory who narrowed her eyes.

“Tell me everything that happened. Now,” Jada demanded.

“Nothing,” Gen answered, trying to sound nonchalant. “We went back to his place. I spent the night.” She shrugged as if it was a weekly occurrence for her rather than the rarity it really was.

Jada scoffed. By then all of the other bridesmaids had gathered around. Gen started to strip and put her maid-of-honor dress on. “What is that?!” Jada screeched.

“What?!” Gen asked, looking frantically around. Jada walked up to her and poked her chest. “Ow!” Gen hissed, cupping the spot her sister just poked. Her eyes widened and she ran to the mirror. She groaned at the sight of the large hickey he’d left on her skin. So that’s what he had been doing. “Son of a bitch.”

Behind her the girls all snickered. All except Mallory. She roughly grabbed Gen’s arm and spun her to inspect the mark closer. Her eyes swam with anger.

“I can’t believe this,” Mallory practically growled.

“So you did sleep with him?” Jada asked, new panic in her voice. Had she really believed Gen would renege on the bet and not go home with the guy?

“I can cover it!” one of the bridesmaids, Anna, said, holding a bottle of scar-covering foundation up triumphantly.

“See? It’ll be fine,” Gen assured her sister. “No one will see it and if it shows up in the pictures, they can doctor it out!”

Jada placed her hands on her puffed out waist. “I don’t give a frick frack about the pictures. I can’t believe you went home with him.”

“What is the big deal?” Gen asked. Anna shoved her into a chair and started dabbing at the sore mark. “I can go home with a guy if I want to. I’m an adult. I’m five years older than you, Missy.”

“Fucking hussy,” Mallory hissed. Gen glared at her back as she walked to grab more champagne.

“I don’t care if you want to be loose with your body. I think every one of us here has had a one-night stand before. But Accardi doesn’t do one-night stands. The guy is a psycho, Gen. I tried to tell you last night but the two of you were insistent on that damn bet. Please tell me you didn’t give him your number or tell him you live in Boston,” Jada pleaded with her hands clasped together.

“Of course not, it was a one-night fling,” Gen reassured her. She didn’t bother to tell her he’d given his number out. Now it was just street litter. “I even gave him a fake name.”

Jada released a huge breath and sank down on the couch. “Thank God.”

“Besides, you must be thinking of the wrong guy. His name isn’t… What did you say? Archie?”

“Accardi,” several of the other women in the room repeated.

“Yeah, this guy’s name was Matteo, not Accardi,” she said, rolling the name off her lips like a foreign language.

Mallory laughed from the opposite side of the room. “She doesn’t even know who she fucked!”

“Shut the hell up, Mallory!” Jada screeched. Mallory gave her future sister-in-law a look that could kill.

“I know him better than you ever will,” Gen taunted with a suggestive wink.

“Accardi is a family name,” Anna explained. She blew on the foundation and studied it from different angles. Her kind brown eyes looked up at her. “The Accardi family is one of the largest gangs in New York. They’ve been in power for generations.”

“The man you went home with last night is the boss of the entire family,” Jada explained.

Gen chuckled. She stood up from the chair and started to put on her heels. “Don’t be ridiculous.” She tried to reconcile the man who had cried in her arms with the image of the typical mafia bosses she saw depicted in movies. She picked up the bagel sandwich he’d made and ate the rest with a secret smile. What would Mallory do if she knew her obvious crush made her breakfast after confessing some of his most secret insecurities?

“It’s not,” Jada continued, interrupting her thoughts. “Seriously, he’s a dangerous man, Gen.”

“Look,” Gen said, her voice calm and resolute. “I had a one-night stand with a very good looking man. We had lots of… fun. That’s it. End of story. I won’t see him again.”

“Good,” Jada said with a sigh of relief.

“Did you hear about his family?” one of the bridesmaids asked the others as she pulled curlers from her hair.

“Yeah,” another responded. “His mom and brother were killed in some freak accident. It was in all of the papers for the last week.”

“What?” Gen asked, a feeling of dread creeping into her gut.

“Yeah, see,” one of the girls said, holding out a paper.

Gen took the newspaper in both hands and stared down at the front page story. The title read: Accardi Family Mourns Death of Two of Their Own. Two caskets were being lowered into graves. Standing in front of the graves was a sullen group of men. The man in front, with his hands behind his back and a look of shiver-inducing fury stood Matteo himself.

Before she could read the article, Jada’s nails were digging into her arm as she hauled her toward the bathroom.

“I need your help peeing,” Jada grumbled.

“Ew…” Gen said, her face pinching in concern. Once in the bathroom, Jada shoved her away and crossed her arms. “So how do we do this?” Gen asked. “I hold your train and you squat or…”

“Tell me the truth. Now,” Jada demanded.

Gen sighed and sat on the edge of the tub. She fiddled with her fingers. “Damn, I guess I am a lousy poker player.”

“The worst,” Jada confirmed.

Gen stood up and got closer to Jada in case Mallory was listening with a glass against the door. “Nothing, okay? Nothing happened.”

Jada deflated and she placed a hand to her chest as if Gen had just been cleared of murder charges. “Good. So he dropped you off at your hotel. Good.”

“Uh, not exactly.”

“What do you mean ‘not exactly’?” she hissed in a whisper.

Gen shrugged. “I went home with him. We slept together.”

Jada’s hands curled to fists and she stomped her foot. “You just said…”

Gen grabbed her sister’s arms and squeezed. “We did not have sex, Jada. We just…” Gen blushed as she tried to formulate what it was that happened. She took her hands back and crossed them around herself. “We just held each other.”

Jada’s eyes narrowed. “Held each other?” Gen nodded. Jada massaged her temples. “You won’t see him again?” Gen shook her head. “Do you promise?” Gen nodded. Jada released a huge breath. “Fine. Okay. It’s done then.”

Jada turned to leave.

“He didn’t seem like a bad guy, Jade,” Gen said to her back.

Jada’s back stiffened. She turned and gave Gen a look of pitying understanding. “They never do.”